Do Regime Change Now, Don’t (maybe) Induce It
Israel and the US should use their forces directly to overthrow the regime in Iran, not hope that our other actions inspire Iranians to somehow sometime do it for us.
We should also set up a transitional replacement government. This government would initiate a normal process for establishing an enduring legitimate government in the country.
The sound regime change method
What is a “normal process” for forming a replacement regime? It is for the legitimate and moderate factions within the country to aggregate together and form a coalition government. And to make it a large enough coalition to win elections.
As long as we take up our share of the responsibility to bring the moderates and legitimate factions together, they could safely hold elections and almost certainly win them. The constitution would probably be a federal democratic one, with the Kurds gaining regional autonomy.
Doing regime change right again – in the right place, right time, right way
The one half-good survey we have of Iranian opinion found that the people favor three political models: parliamentary republic, presidential republic, and constitutional (parliamentary) monarchy. It found 80% of Iranians wanting to replace the regime along these lines. This is a solid basis for making the regime change stick.
The Iranians are also the most pro-Western and secular people in the Mideast, after Israel itself. Empowering them is not going to make us another enemy, as the Bush-Obama regime changes tended to do.
What the Iranian people need is for us to topple the regime and help their factions to coalesce in forming a moderate, legitimate replacement.
Why do they need this from us? Because we have, sadly, castrated them by telling them repeatedly not to use force when protesting by the millions against the regime for too long.
Time to put aside our self-hatred
We have castrated ourselves too, in our long post-Vietnam funk. We’ve done this by telling ourselves for decades that we should never do “regime change” again.
Bush said this as his answer to Clinton’s foreign policy. Obama repeated it as his answer to Bush. Both were demagogic about it, Obama the worse for also being anti-American about it.
Both Bush and Obama found out that they had to do regime change anyway. Their slogan simply hobbled them from doing it properly. They resorted to ideological rationalizations and amateurish methods for carrying out regime changes without admitting how wrong they had been. Deflected by the ideologies and their rhetoric, they ended up doing most of their regime changes poorly – late, and often in the wrong places.
There is something badly wrong with our politicians, when they keep aping the failed slogans of Bush and Obama about not doing regime change.
Trump has repeatedly expressed his contempt for Bush and Obama as fools. But he may not realize that their original foolishness was their renunciation in advance, as a matter of principle, of “regime change”. All their mistakes on regime change followed from that.
America used to get regime changes right. We can do it again.
Reality is much simpler. Sometimes it is absolutely right to do a regime change.
America is no stranger to this reality. Our greatest foreign policy successes, the enduring liberation of Germany and Japan, were made by regime changes – ones that we made by military force. We’ve had these great countries as reliable allies ever since.
Every Administration is likely to face an occasion that requires regime change. When it’s needed, it becomes an obligation to carry it through in good time, without getting deflected by political slogans. And to do it well, without ideological blunders.
This is the Trump Administration’s occasion for it. It’s its moment to rise to history.
It is well to do it. May it do it well and quickly.